In case you’re out of the loop, let me bring you up to speed: LOST IS BACK. After a shaky, and for some an unfulfilling, start to season three of LOST followed by a hiatus that shifted attention away from LOST’s slow plotting to the lightening quick story telling of rival Heroes, LOST had to come back strong and sustain it. Arguably, the beginning of the second, and largest, segment of the third season was not as huge an improvement as the show needed to reclaim its position at the top of pop TV. Then somewhere around “Flashes Before Your Eyes” something happened.

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A shift took place in the LOST formula and suddenly we were not being strung along by barely palpable nibbles of long running, or long abandoned, plot points; no, now we are being drug along the jungle floor with plot advancement that both cauterizes the long festering wounds of old mysteries, and gashes opens new questions that aren’t so much meant to distract us as to force us to look at the story in dangerous new ways.

“The Brig” is, in some ways a respite from the assault of recent weeks. After last weeks proposition that Flight 815 had been found with all on board dead, fans wanted answers. The fact that there was little more than a wordy elaboration on that statement this go around wasn’t so awful when stacked up against the highly emotional journey that Locke and Sawyer took.

We found out how things went for Locke after he joined up with the others. His father came to the island after a car crashed and is convinced that he is in hell. Partially this is because he believes that John was killed in the Oceanic crash. He provides a vector of verification that the plane was indeed found, or he is in on the con. At this point in the story, paranoia rules the day for the characters and the audience alike.

Locke goes on his journey with The Others and finds out that he must kill Cooper if he is to go any further with them. This is not an easy thing for Locke. We have to remember that Locke is someone who came to learn to control his anger on his own terms. Surely he despises Cooper, but he will not kill him. Cooper taunts him, tells him that he can’t do it because he still wants his daddy. But between you and me, I think Locke is at peace with Cooper, he just doesn’t know how to express that.

One thing is for sure, for Locke to learn the secrets of the island Cooper must die. Alpert suggests maybe he could get Sawyer to do it. He gives Locke Sawyer’s file and then Locke learns the shocking connection he has to Sawyer. Cooper is the man who under the name Tom Sawyer, conned Sawyer’s parents and led his father to pull the murder suicide routine with his mom.

Locke leads Sawyer to cooper and he does the deed. While Sawyer is chocking out Cooper, Danielle makes a brief appearance to grab a crate of dynamite. Foreshadowing on a not very subtle scale. Before Sawyer returns to the beach Locke informs him that Juliet is a mole and gives him the tape recorder she was leaving messages on as proof.

Things at the beach are getting kind of tense. Charlie, Hurlie, Jin, and Desmond decide they do not trust Jack enough to let him know about Naomi. She claims she was sent by Penny to rescue Desmond and that if she can get word to her ship they will all be rescued. Enter Sayid who is able to repair her phone, but cannot get a signal out. When Kate sees the phone, she coaxes an explanation out of them. She confronts Jack and Juliet. Juliet says something like “We should tell her.” But Jack refuses, leaving Kate, and us, what they are keeping for a secret.